Considering that we are now entering the business end of the Gaelic football championship, you would imagine that there would be quite a bit of excitement surrounding this weekend's All-Ireland round robin fixtures. However, when speaking to GAA fans, you get the sense that many of them are struggling to get up for this round of games.
The reasons for that are understandable.
The current format of the All-Ireland groups means that there is a serious lack of jeopardy in most games. With three out of four teams advancing from each pool, there is very little on the line in many of the fixtures.
As a result, spectators have been voting with their feet, with crowds down quite a bit in comparison to what you saw in championship games in previous years.
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The current Gaelic football championship format is in the second of a three-year trial run, at which point a decision will be taken on how the competition will look moving forward.
However, some would like to see changes made sooner than that.
Speaking on The Sunday Game, both Sean Cavanagh and Ciaran Whelan suggested that the current championship format was not fit for purpose and needed to be shaken up in 2025.
Cavanagh: When you look at the support going to the games, it's not what it should be. Whenever there are games better supported in pre-season competitions than there are in June, it tells us the supporters are tuning out.
There is a bit of a lull in the championship. We had a couple of good provincial finals and a handful of good provincial games, but we're now back to waiting on the real championship to begin...
Whelan: I think there is an issue (with the format). The public are beginning to vote with their feet, you can see the attendances are much lower than ever earlier league games...
We have to bring a little bit of jeopardy back into it. I know there are different issues and arguments, but maybe we can step back and look at the hurling model, in terms of groups of five and do we need to split our championship into three competitions.
We're not getting into championship structures, but the bottom line is that the people are voting with their feet...
Cavanagh: We're going to watch Kerry and Meath here today. Meath took a tanking against Louth last week, they will probably take a tanking here today, and yet they could still go through by winning next week. What's the point in this game or the win last week?
Whelan: It's a simple solution, it has to be two (teams) that qualify.
Allowing just two teams to advance from each group would certainly solve a lot of the current issues.
The GAA brought wanted to three teams to advance to ensure that there would be very few dead rubbers in the championship, but the decision to do so has all but made the entire round robin series a pointless exercise.
With supporter interest waining, you get the sense that they could look to address this issue in 2025.
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